Guild Wars 2

CptCuddles.8912:

xDudisx.5914:

The nerf to turrets is a solid proof that huge comunity QQ gives results on anet’s class balance. Turrets were not very used in wvw, were not very used in pve (only to blast fields) and an underpowered build in spvp. Now after the nerf the useless and underpowered skills just became even weaker.

While people were qqing about weak turrets, the realy op skills like slick shoes and tool kit were flying under the radar.

Turrets were a huge problem for the pvp community and ruined numerous players’ experiences.

Yes, this balance change was somewhat of a band-aid fix to the problem, but the balance devs are likely spending the majority of their time and effort working on the expansion content. I personally wish they would spend more time on the current game but that is clearly not the direction anet management wants to go in.

This had to be changed at some point because it has made the past year of pvp awful. It was very much overdo for how completely overpowered the build was in terms of the skill required to completely carry a point and sometimes even a game.

You guys are always saying “turrets” ruined players’ experiences.
That’s utterly wrong. It’s not like everyone was using turrets and engineer had 201495807 different turret builds, which overshadowed all the other builds, etc.

What ruined players’ experiences was a simple build based around the interaction of Sentinel Amulet and fully traited turrets.

Also, there might still be a way to play turreteer in spite of these changes.
How about:
-swap rifled turret barrels for fortified turrets
-swap rocket turret for net turret(shorter cooldown)

Amen to this.
We need rings or jewels. One amulet won’t cut it.

Rozbuska.5263:

Stupid afk turret for daily noobs was destroyed good. Other smart uses of turret remain the same even better. Ppl still cry to my whisp about OP turrets priceless:-)

First test the blind part, then the part about builds remaining the same again…
Because if my theory is correct, you can now no longer pop your healing turret to interrupt a thief doing a smoke stomp.

Sidizen.9048:

Well if you weren’t a turret engineer the only reason to bring a turret was for the knock back and interrupt (for most builds). Turret engineer was the most annoying build I have ever played against and now nobody will use them, how is this bad!?

I can’t test right now, but have you tested, what happens, when the turret gets blinded before it detonates?
Do you like your thumper being blinded?
Even if all you use your turrets for is decapping a point and then exploding them or decapping a point by exploding them, you are still going to feel the impact of this change.

Anymras.5729:

naphack.9346:

Terrorsquad.2349:

naphack.9346:

Terrorsquad.2349:

Superform.1067:

whats with the wack a mole approach to balance?

i gave a turret engi a go and maybe played 500 or so ranked matches with it prob another 500 on my ranger

in all that time i didnt see that they were that op – any decent team or just 1 guy who knows how to counter a turret engi can do it pretty effectively – now they dont even have to try

anyway i dont understand why you listen to people who cry without doing any research into how to counter a turret engi

turrets arnt the problem with engies – the decap potential is.. its the only class that has massive decap ability – thats what should be nurfed -

Turrets were too strong, anyone NOT hugging turret engi will acknowledge.

Nope. Anyone not having a clue will acknowledge.
The problem wasn’t as you put it, that turrets were too strong.
The problem was, that one single build, using turrets with a sentinel bunker setup was too strong, but that wasn’t a flaw with the power level of turrets.
Yet instead of addressing the problem at hand, arena.net blanket nerfed an entire skill type. That’s like shelling a village with artillery, because a single terrorist is hiding there.

Turrets = AI
All other AI = Inlfuenced by condi/crits
Engi AI’s = Not influenced by Condi and Crit + much more HP, CC, Regen and Damage than other AI (not fair)

Balance = Job well done.
Its pure logic, if you ask me.

When I was testing turret engi, I was winning fights so easily (vs beginners AND experienced players) which you shouldn’t win

Turrets = AI.
All other AI = affected by boons.
Engi’s AI = still not affected by boons.

Balance = job poorly done.
Apply your logic correctly or you might get burnt.

Grouch did claim that they might eventually allow Turrets to benefit from boons, but that they were going to see how this change worked out first.

Like this current nerf, that’s also to appease the masses going into the upcoming expansion. This time, it’s meant to appease the turreteers, who were persecuted in the witch hunt.

DavyMcB.1603:

I wouldn’t worry too much. Not yet anyway. Anet stated in the specialization talk that turrets will be completely overhauled. This might simply be their pilot test to see whether it’s a go or no-go and whether they can make other changes to accommodate this change. Plus, we all know turret engies are one of the top builds (anyone who says otherwise is pretty much lying). And btw the condi damage against turrets should have been implemented long ago. Turrets (though ‘mechanical’ as it seems) are pretty much in the same league as spirits/minions/illusions. They should be damageable from condi spec point of view.

This has nothing to do with any overhauls.
They want to erase a perceived eyesore from their game, so everything looks clean going into the expansion.

Right now is a critical time: People get hyped for the new expansion, many players return to the game to get ready for it, etc.
They just don’t want those returning people or any potential newcomers to have the impression of a cheese build ruling pvp. The turret nerf has nothing to do with rational decisions about game balance, it’s a decision made for marketing reasons.
There was a lot of unrest in the PvP community and Arena.net simply burned a witch at the stake to appease the masses. That’s all this nerf is about.

If you believe, this change has been brought forward to improve game balance, you probably also believe, it’s justified shell a village with artillery because a single terrorist is hiding in it.
In this analogy, the village is the turret skills, the artillery is the nerf hammer and the terrorist is the sentinel amulet.

Cmon, even I as a turret engi used the term abomination and eyesore, when referring to the state of the turreteer.
It was obnoxious, but if they needed a hotfix, removing sentinel amulet would have been enough to bring turreteer back in line with other builds until more detailed fixes could be made. No need to nerf my sweet decap build with a mostly untraited thumper… Well, I figure, I will copy the metabattle decap build then, if I am not allowed to use the decap build, I’d like to use.

Power ranger is an active role… And the removal of a build, it was actually good against(turret engi) certainly won’t increase the number of players running it.
Also remember, people played turret engi for different reasons.

If you mean the guys, who picked turret engi, so they can sit at a single point and pick their nose, probably shoutbow or bunker guard.
If you mean the guys, who picked turret engi, because they just thought, it’s funny to bunker with an ai based build, minionmancer or some sort of 2 bird bunker (beastmaster with rune of yarrrr). Some may even get desperate and try to get spirit weapons to work.
If you mean the guys, who actually wanted to play engi, they will play decap now.

If you mean the guys, who just wanted to troll: decap, banner warrior or some sort of obnoxious cleric ranger.

Thiefz.3695:

Look, engis have builds other than celestial. The only problem is that those builds aren’t as good as other classes running similar specs. Engineers have a burst, bunker, and condi builds but other classes run them better. Celestial is only meta because for now, it’s the best build. This change doesn’t impact how I play HGH burst engi or how I play condi p/s engi. Perhaps it will force people to play or experiment with other engi builds. You can still win with other builds. I do.

I think people got comfortable with turret engi. It’s still viable but not in the way it was used before. People also admitted that it didn’t impact their play style. No one agrees it was the best solution but it was “a” solution. This is the third time they have nerfed engi, it won’t be the last.

The reason, nobody plays condi or burst engi isn’t that other classes can do that better.
The reason, nobody plays condi or burst engi is, that nobody runs condi or burst anything these days. Everyone runs healing tanky builds with passive condition application and good physical damage, condi clear, lots of AoE spam and boon application.
Most of them are celestial, except for the guardian, which can stay in the meta on the power of meditations alone, without having to abuse overpowered stat combinations.
Then there is thieves, which will find a way to fit into every meta, no matter, what you do to them.
Condi ranger or trapper? Driven out of the meta by shoutbows.
Shatter mesmer? Driven out of the meta by hard to kill builds and thieves.
Powermancer, Terrormancer? Driven out of the meta by shoutbows and meditation guards.

If those builds weren’t part of the meta anymore, because people found other classes, which can do the job better, there’d be no reason to complain. But that isn’t the case. They aren’t part of the meta anymore because nobody needs dedicated builds. People want to have their cake and eat it. It’s the celestial meta. A build needs to be able to do everything equally or it is unworthy.

Hm… I dunno, what to say…
Arena.net never really cared about fixing turrets. They just wanted this eyesore gone, so people can go back to being hyped for the HoT release.
I don’t know, whether their strategy will pay off in the long run, though.

mistsim.2748:

lol how did they shut down our condi builds? you can do the same thing you do now, in addition to maxing out BM for the taunt and scary pets.

I agree that useless traits need to be fixed, but new condi BM builds will be so scary.

They use celestial. You use Rabid or Carrion.
If you use Rabid, you die to conditions, if you use carrion, you die to crit.
Meanwhile, the celestial builds are min/maxed to have enough sustain and condi remove to live through your condi application.
Ultimately, what really drove condition ranger out of the meta was the advent of the shoutbow: A bunker spec, which is nearly immune to conditions, while dishing out pure celestial damage to anyone who doesn’t have a solid mix of both vitality AND toughness.
Normally, taking down bunkers was what condi builds were really good at. After all, the initial bunker meta of the game shifted to condi meta, when people figured out, that trapper rangers actually ate bunker guards on point.

Condi builds will come back with HoT.
NOT because the new trait setup allows their builds, but because celestial gets a well deserved stab in the guts.

You know, when arena.net changed it, so you could no longer play the glorious 14/14/14/14/14 builds, build diversity also decreased from a strict mathematical standpoint.
As my example shows, how unhelpful this is, now for some discussion on practical builds:

The most important point here is condensing skill improving traits into two traits at most. There’s still stuff to be said about traits with synergy, but the traits specifically improving certain utility skills have been cut down to at most two per type of skill.
What this does: You don’t have to go all-in anymore, if you want to use a certain type of skill.
I think, builds with a reasonable mix of different traited utilities will emerge. I can see people wanting to trait for two types of utility skills and grabbing the best from both worlds. With the old system, that would leave the rest of your build bare bone. With the current, it merely makes you choose two(in special cases even only one) specializations out of the three you can choose based on what utility skills you want to use.
I like the concept, as it gets rid of the illusion of choice.
Currently, you have 6 adept traits to choose from, but you know, 4 of them are rubbish.

miriforst.1290:

nerfed or sbooned, not fixed.

Just sayin.

What do you mean, it’s not okay to shell a village where a terrorist is hiding with artillery?
The best way to fix a problem is to make sure, the problem will never occur again, right?

pdavis.8031:

I think this is a great change. It puts turrets in line with pets and minions. Not being able to be critted and immune to conditions is what made them so “OP” from a perspective of fighting against them. This is basically the change that we have been asking for for turrets for a long time. Although as a necro I didn’t have too much trouble with turrets, although sometimes they could be annoying.

It doesn’t put them in line with pets and minions.
As a ranger, I can give my pet protection, might and other goodies.
Every minion can receive boons. Heck, thieves can instagib people by using thieves guild and sharing three venoms.

If you truly care about bringing turrets in line with other minions, then go and demand for turrets to be affected by boons and other effects.

Well, going to the forum, crying “muh meta build iznt wurkin. Nurf turretz plx” is any less lame?

Just sayin’.

Terrorsquad.2349:

naphack.9346:

Terrorsquad.2349:

Superform.1067:

whats with the wack a mole approach to balance?

i gave a turret engi a go and maybe played 500 or so ranked matches with it prob another 500 on my ranger

in all that time i didnt see that they were that op – any decent team or just 1 guy who knows how to counter a turret engi can do it pretty effectively – now they dont even have to try

anyway i dont understand why you listen to people who cry without doing any research into how to counter a turret engi

turrets arnt the problem with engies – the decap potential is.. its the only class that has massive decap ability – thats what should be nurfed -

Turrets were too strong, anyone NOT hugging turret engi will acknowledge.

Nope. Anyone not having a clue will acknowledge.
The problem wasn’t as you put it, that turrets were too strong.
The problem was, that one single build, using turrets with a sentinel bunker setup was too strong, but that wasn’t a flaw with the power level of turrets.
Yet instead of addressing the problem at hand, arena.net blanket nerfed an entire skill type. That’s like shelling a village with artillery, because a single terrorist is hiding there.

Turrets = AI
All other AI = Inlfuenced by condi/crits
Engi AI’s = Not influenced by Condi and Crit + much more HP, CC, Regen and Damage than other AI (not fair)

Balance = Job well done.
Its pure logic, if you ask me.

When I was testing turret engi, I was winning fights so easily (vs beginners AND experienced players) which you shouldn’t win

Turrets = AI.
All other AI = affected by boons.
Engi’s AI = still not affected by boons.

Balance = job poorly done.
Apply your logic correctly or you might get burnt.

Shaogin.2679:

naphack.9346:

Well, enjoy your undisturbed celestial meta.
I’ll be off to PvE and come back once the specialization patch comes along and nerfs celestial.

Judging by the changes I’ve seen, I think something much more terrifying than three professions using an common amulet is on the way. The new meta will drive people in mass to the forums to QQ.

If an annoying meta makes you hide in PvE, we won’t ever be seeing you in PvP.

As long as the new meta isn’t defined by people just rolling in with lots of pressure and sustain, spamming AoE and boons left, right and center, while drowning you in conditions, I don’t mind.

I for one am for a return to a meta with more defined and diversified roles. Currently it’s a wash, with cele rifle, cele dd, shoutbow and medi guard all being different flavors of the same concept.
If we can get back to a meta with more diversified builds, I won’t kittening care, how obnoxious those builds are. I just don’t feel like playing, when it seems everyone is running the exact same build… Even, when they run totally different classes.

Whether you fight a shoutbow, cele rifle, d/d ele, meditation guard… While they all have their strengths to some degree, there’s nothing remarkable or special about them. They charge in guns blazing and do their healy burning AoE thingie of doom.

I want builds with character.

Terrorsquad.2349:

Superform.1067:

whats with the wack a mole approach to balance?

i gave a turret engi a go and maybe played 500 or so ranked matches with it prob another 500 on my ranger

in all that time i didnt see that they were that op – any decent team or just 1 guy who knows how to counter a turret engi can do it pretty effectively – now they dont even have to try

anyway i dont understand why you listen to people who cry without doing any research into how to counter a turret engi

turrets arnt the problem with engies – the decap potential is.. its the only class that has massive decap ability – thats what should be nurfed -

Turrets were too strong, anyone NOT hugging turret engi will acknowledge.

Nope. Anyone not having a clue will acknowledge.
The problem wasn’t as you put it, that turrets were too strong.
The problem was, that one single build, using turrets with a sentinel bunker setup was too strong, but that wasn’t a flaw with the power level of turrets.
Yet instead of addressing the problem at hand, arena.net blanket nerfed an entire skill type. That’s like shelling a village with artillery, because a single terrorist is hiding there.

Well, enjoy your undisturbed celestial meta.
I’ll be off to PvE and come back once the specialization patch comes along and nerfs celestial.

As everyone here posts rigid class comps, I really hope, the meta becomes more open and defined around roles rather than builds.
The new trait system has the potential.

nightblood.7910:

Or just boosting clone health overall rather than invul.

Where its a challenge to destroy the clones but not impossible.

Turret mesmer inc.

Sevans.4619:

And I’d like to add the Jaguar’s F2 ability Stalk to the discussion, for those of us who prefer fuzzy creatures to eight-legged monstrosities.

Gonna be interrupting heals like crazy.

Bonus points: The jaguar becomes invisible and the opponent doesn’t even know who taunted him…
Will he then proceed to blindly attack anything in range?

It really depends on the trait in question.
The thief one is a strong choice with the new trait setup. Having that blind and stealth tied to the steal mechanic is really great.
Some of the others… Yeah… Sigh…
A falling trait needs to either have a desirable effect attached to it or be in a slot with good alround choices, so it doesn’t limit build choices.

Three placements/changes well done:
Thief: Great revamp, could even be main-pickable, if you never even intend to take falling damage.
Warrior: No revamp at all, but in a great spot where nobody will complain about a lack of choice. The traits in the same slots aren’t narrow at all and the two alternatives should fit all needs.
Necro: Slight revamp, great placement. There’s two narrow but potent traits in that slot and one “fits-any-size” trait with weakening shroud.

Bad placements:
Ranger: Unaltered, stuffed with a pet-only trait and a trait for specific weapon sets. One slot, three extremely narrow choices. This is honestly the worst placement of all fall damage traits.
Mesmer: Unaltered trait in a line with a utility boost trait and a totally unexciting passive damage reduction. Well, at least the passive damage reduction will be useful everywhere but it’s still rather poor.
Guardian: It’s a horrible idea to have a revive trait and a fall damage trait in the same slot. There may be people who want to choose both(WvW) and people, who want to choose neither and are stuck with… HEALING POWER ON BLOCKS!

We don’t know enough yet, honestly.
The ranger lines looked like half the adept traits were just crammed back in there unchanged so they have a full set of traits for the presentation, for example. I smell lots of work in progress on some of the trait lines on all professions, so it’s hard to say, what their final state will be.

As a general rule: Thief will be big.
Thieves have always been about picking three lines, most often choosing two grandmasters in specific and then finding a line to sink the remaining 2 points. Thief will clearly benefit the most from having a third grandmaster, because the grandmaster traits of thief have always been great. Having two former Grandmaster major traits being shifted to minor and master respectively can only help.

So you are saying, it has no actual function right now?
Make pet invis, grant protection, send to place…
Let’s go on: While the pet is invis, it will hold back the special ability, which means, you can command dogs to knockdown, whenever you want.
The ability to place an invis pet at a target location and have it pop up behind the enemy to set up a coordinated burst attack.
Seems like a great package on a small cooldown to me.

I can see a trapper build on the horizon:

Skirmishing: Most Dangerous Game, Trapper’s Expertise, Quick Draw
Survival: Ambidexteriy, Oakheart Salve, Empathic Bond
Nature Magic: ANY, Evasive Purity OR Vigorous Training, Protective Ward(OMGNERFPLZ)

Weapons: S/D, A/T
the idea is, that quick draw allows you to lay down double fire fields with the torch and evade like crazy with the sword.

That being said, what we saw on friday will not be the final state of the ranger traits. A lot of it looked unfinished and unpolished, like they just tossed in some leftovers to fill up the quota for the presentation.

Girion.5483:

naphack.9346:

wut? nobody said that…
spiders have an instant cast f2. That’s all, this thread was about.

Erm well, excuse my considering other pets as well. >.>

The F2 for spiders might be instant, but we don’t know whether the trait triggers on F2 activation (which I doubt) or whether it triggers the moment the spider actually uses one of those effect stacks with one of its auto-attacks, which I deem more likely.

That’s why basilisk venom triggers rune of the sunless or rune of the krait, when you strike someone with it rather than when you cast it?
Activating the ability = ability causing an effect and going on cooldown. In the case of the spider venoms, the effect is: Give this spider a venom buff.

I still don’t get why people want yolo queue back. It was horrible.
Sure, feeling like a god was fun for some time, but honestly, yolo queue generally came down to which team had the best player, as nobody even WANTED to cooperate and everyone just brawled off-point. It was just that bad.

Scootabuser.4915:

I’ve only heard two things:
1. SR is so strong it makes the other 2 grandmaster traits pointless, you may as well just spec a different line.
2. SR does not replace infusion of shadow for certain builds.

Wether it’s worth changing is up to AN to decide, but these changes were PREVIEWED early so AN could get FEEDBACK.

Stop telling people not to give feedback…

Yeah right.
If I wanna run a support build, I will clearly not run venom share in favor of being able to run Shadow’s Rejuvenation.
…
Sure. Let’s roll with this. You’ve made up your mind anyway so no point in arguing.

TheFantasticGman.9451:

naphack.9346:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

6 might is hardly a large benefit and it sure doesn’t make you Most Dangerous anything.

How many non-external, non-elite ways to stack might does ranger have?
We aren’t talking about a warrior or elementalist here. Ranger can’t constantly pump out 25 stacks of might.

That’s why in a party there’s a PS war or ele anyway… and why I won’t be using that trait no matter what lol especially not if it’s a GM.

Why would you pick a trait that requires you to drop below 50% when you are in a party?
This is clearly a roaming trait.

Girion.5483:

I’m pretty sure this trait triggers on execution of the F2-skill and not immediately on clicking it. You need to factor in casting time and the time your pet needs to get in range for its F2. This can delay the trait effect and might make it hard to time as an interrupt.

But you got a good point there. In order to be usable by ranged pets the radius of this trait should be 900. Number of targets = 5? lol, that would be fun.

wut? nobody said that…
spiders have an instant cast f2. That’s all, this thread was about.

Hah, from now on, I will party with people in different maps and search on my own, just so people can complain about me being part of a large stack.
:>
Dis gon’ b gud.

So what’s the point of this thread then? If you feel like it’s a must, just pick it and be done with it.
Would be a bad thing, if nobody wanted to take the trait.

Exactly what do you define as pugs vs teams? Of course, 1+1+1+1+1 v 5 has all the potential to create imbalanced matchups. Anything else can not really be called pugs vs teams.
Also, what do you define as an even matchup? Regardless of the end result of the game, I regard it as an even matchup, when both teams had the exactly same chance of winning the game.
I told you, 1+1+1+1+1 v 3+1+1 works fine with Dota2 matchmaking. And I’m fairly certain, if GW2 PvP had a larger player base, it’d also be easy to create a matchmaking system capable of creating “balanced” 1+1+1+1+1 v 3 +1+1 matchups.
The problem at hand is, that most GW2 PvP matches aren’t as close as Dota2 matches, where there is almost always a very realistic chance of turning the game around.

With the conquest formula, even small differences in the daily performance of otherwise equally skilled players can cause a huge point difference.
Evenly matched games can still end with large point differences just because momentum is such a deciding factor in sPvP, which will then further the perception of an unfair matchup, when in fact both teams had the same chance of winning at the start of the game.
Not every game, where one side wins by more than 150 points was horribly one sided and not every match, which ends 499 to 500 was totally even. The end result of a single game doesn’t say anything about whether a matchup was balanced.

Bio Flame.4276:

Don’t you read? Did you even bother to check other games? Go read and get some information for yourself?

You don’t need a silly algorithm that will never be able to do balanced, fair and fun matches between PUGs and Teams. That’s never going to happen.
You match teams against teams (5vs5) and PUGs vs PUGs.
Nothing else.
There’s no 4+1 or 3+1+1 nonsense. Either a full team of 5vs5 or full PUGs vs PUGs.

There aren’t enough players? Well, I can promise you that if ANET keeps this way, there will never be enough PvP players. Never.
Why? Because randoms vs premades/duos/trios is just plain not balanced, not fair and not fun.
New players join, play and won’t stay. PvPers will leave because it’s also not competitive to fight PUGs.

If Evan and Josh really believe there’s potential in sPvP, then they should not allow for PUGs vs Premades or that 4+1 vs 4+1 nonsense.
If they don’t believe in PvP’s future, then keep the direction and onwards towards the disaster…

Well, I do play other games.
In Dota, it’s no problem to have partial teams matched with solo players and Dota requires far more teamwork than gw2 conquest ever will. In fact, people queue solo, in small teams, as full teams(which are always matched against full teams for obvious reasons) and the matchmaker takes care of things. Sometimes, it’s five(5!!!!) solo players vs a triple stack and two solos. Sometimes, it’s two double stacks and a solo against a triple stack and two solos and there are no problems.
But one of the most punishing team games out there surely is bad reference material.

Bio Flame.4276:

Dude, if you think PvP is not difficult or “not rocket-science” then clearly you really have no idea what true competitive PvP is like.
“Play it by the book”? What do you think PvP is, PvE against humans? Yes, I know a lot of pseudo-PvPers think like you do, and like you, they are wrong.

Seriously, if you don’t know what competition is, please refrain from posting on PvP forums.

The fact is, on most games, including ANET’s own GW1, random players do NOT have to face organized teams. It’s not an even fight, it’s not balanced.
There’s no silly pseudo-matchmaking algorithm that’s ever going to balance it out.

Go check other games, better PvP games. Heck, go check ANET’s GW1, which was without doubt a vastly better PvP game and there was no random PUGs vs organized teams.
And there wasn’t this nonsense that Evan says about 4+1 vs 4+1 or 3+1+1 vs 3+1+1.
No. It a degree of the same lack of true understanding about PvP but it is a lack of understanding nonetheless.

That our PvP Dev that says “why shouldn’t we allow 4+1 vs 4+1” is appalling and shows that he has very little grasp about competition and teams.
If he had said “I am following orders” I could sympathize and understand, but not this way, no.

Okay. How about you make a deal with arena.net?
You bring them a million new pvp players and they will gladly deliver you the bestest matchmaking algorithm ever.
A matchmaking algorithm is limited by the amount of players, who want to play. How else to match a group of 4 players than 4+1v4+1?
Match them 4+1v5?
4+1v1+1+1+1+1?
The most fair thing to do is still find another 4+1 group and hope it pans out. There isn’t enough 4 man groups out there to hand-pick a 4 man group and find the perfect player, so everyone is on the same level. Of course, they can improve the algorithm… By tripling the queue times. There just isn’t enough players out there and the matchmaking algorithm has to make do with what is given to it.

Guild Wars 2 goes by the motto “go play when you like, how you like” or something along those lines. This includes the ability to queue for pvp matches with any number of friends.

And now don’t say something like “if the matchmaking algorithm was better, there surely would be more players.”
If the matchmaking algorithm was better, you wouldn’t notice any difference, because the player pool is still too narrow to make meaningful matchups.

DeWolfe.2174:

With all the “reasons” given for why Turret Engi was/is a bad build, how does Pew Pew Rangers not teach a similar bad behavior? This past match the enemy teams top personal scorer was a Ranger that camped LB the entire match. That’s all he did was sit behind his teammates at max ranger and pew pew away. He probably looks at that score and believes he’s contributing the most.

As some players have already made some… statements… on the subject, here a totally unbiased comment on the difference between turrets and glassbow.

If I have to point out a big difference: with glassbow, you have an easy time during fights, but you are shifting responsibility for actually winning the fight to your team, because all you do is dps, and will always struggle to make an impact on the score of the game. With a turreteer, you have an easy time impacting the score board, but you will always struggle during fights.

I learned playing PvP by playing the glassbow over countless games back in the old soloqueue and even back in the old 8 player hotjoins. The glassbow makes it easy to fight, but teaches you the necessity of good rotations. You can hit like a truck full of bricks, but in the large scheme of things, all you do is poke at enemies and cap empty points. If you are at the wrong place, all you can do is scramble to the next fight and curse about the wasted time. You can learn a lot about tactics by playing the glassbow, because you have to apply those tactics correctly for your actions to have a positive effect on the team score.

A couple weeks back, I was looking into a bunker build… And well, if you want to bunker, turreteer is all the rage right now. The turreteer is all about stalling a fight on point till defensive rotations can arrive. He will also crush anyone doing a bad rotation against him and just die, if the opponents are smart about rotating or if his team sucks.
A lot of strategy goes into playing a turreteer correctly. But it stops at strategy. Once you set up, you won’t move around for a lot.

With this being said, here’s the direct comparison. Feel free to make some witty “in soviet russia” remarks:

A longbow teaches you the necessity of good rotations and improves your understanding of PvP tactics by making you lose the game despite having the highest score of all the players on both teams, if you don’t rotate properly. A turret makes you feel the necessity for good rotations, but doesn’t teach you anything. Instead it teaches all the other players in the game, both friend and foe, the necessity of good rotations and punishes them with a game loss, if they don’t rotate properly.

So tell me: How many of the perceived big stacks are really big stacks?
I’ve witnessed this many times: Two players coordinate their attacks well and the rest of the team does some smart rotations and everyone instantly assumes, the whole team is one stack.
The more likely scenario: The players coordinating their attacks are a 2 man team and the rest of the team simply knows what to do. I mean, PvP is no rocket science. if you have a basic understanding of what your team is running and what they are up to, you can just play it by the book and do the right thing.

I’d already be happy if they brought back the mystic forge, so I can at the very least throw all the junk I get from playing pvp into the forge while waiting.

Corner a wounded animal. Then we are talking.

Okay, let me get this straight:
As long as nobody writes a single word in team chat before the match starts and nobody writes a single word during the entire match, people simply have no right to complain about unfair matchups, if their opponent happens to communicate.
If you don’t attempt to communicate before a match, but just blindly scramble to the next free spot, once the match starts, you can’t complain about teams, which actually do communicate, regardless of whether some planner in the opponents team happens to be part of a premade and just deliver a rough strategy draft to his pug team mates. Fact is, the opponent did communicate, while you made no attempt to do so.

Yes, if the opponent is premade, they can theoretically be in VOIP, but even that much isn’t a given. You also can’t discern whether or not everyone is actually part of a premade team or whether they just cooperate well. The only thing that matters is, that the opponent did communicate, while you didn’t.
Only when you used the communication methods available to you to their fullest, but failed, because the opponents had superior communication methods outside the game, then you can start complaining.

I don’t really care about winning, which is why I hardly ever initiate a strategy discussion before the game. But if you take losses so badly, how about you start actually caring before the game starts and not only after you got your face kicked in? Everyone wants a good game, so if you ask, they will usually answer. You have about a minute to discuss:
-what builds everyone is running
-any utility skills required to beat whatever meta the opponent is likely to run
-long term strategy
-your initial tactics

But everything, that’s usually in the chat is, if at all, a “hello” and then everyone waits for the match to start… Then people look at where everyone else is going to figure out, what could have been planned before the match started and then everyone starts kittening about the opponent being a 4 or 5 man stack.
I’ve been accused of being part of a big stack twice… Or well, my team was accused of being a big stack. Both times, I was part of a 2 man group… So the method to discover stacks doesn’t seem very accurate.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBMhFakRleVrYxnFiWEoIItuw8QgXTdfbXtUeVVUbF-TJxGABAcKAy9JAwUZAW2fAA

LOL
brb trolling the next hotjoin

but…but…but…
But my Spirit of Nature – Search and Rescue build with Runes of Mercy and revive traits…

Nah, just kidding. If I wanna be a dedicated medic, I run thief.

Hence why I said in the second post of this very thread, that the trait is fine as is, but the line currently lacks an adept trait for physical glass canon dps builds with the stupid revive trait wasting a spot.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

6 might is hardly a large benefit and it sure doesn’t make you Most Dangerous anything.

How many non-external, non-elite ways to stack might does ranger have?
We aren’t talking about a warrior or elementalist here. Ranger can’t constantly pump out 25 stacks of might.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Well, that would be why it’s called “Most Dangerous Game”. You get a large benefit for staying in a risky situation.

Just imagine running around with an axe and Nature Magic. So much glorious might.

Nah. The name comes from the fact, that cornered beasts are the most dangerous. The name basically implies, that whoever drives you into a corner will regret it. The name isn’t about intentionally staying in a risky situation for the thrill of combat as some sort of game.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/de/definition/englisch/game
5) [MASS NOUN] Wild mammals or birds hunted for sport or food:
“they hunted game in Alaska”

Razor.9872:

4) I’m glad I made you laugh, hopefully lightened up this debate a bit. But could you explain why it did so?

Not sure if troll or serious.

From the way, you always try to pacify opponents of your idea by claiming, nothing would change(and all the explanations you did always included the low cooldown) to now suddenly acknowledging, that your changes would indeed cause the low cooldown to go away, it seems like you intend to force your point of view through, no matter what.
That’s not, how a discussion works. If you aren’t here to discuss, but merely to state your point of view, then there’s no need to discuss any further.

As for me, the announcement of the incoming nerf just made me play the build more, while I still can.
Not because I want easy wins(well, in ranked as a lone turreteer, the wins are anything but easy. You have to use the knockbacks from turret explosions to stop stopms or rezzes, keep overcharged shot to break entangle, if you are against rangers, use cc to pin down low health targets, etc… You can’t just /sleep on your point. You have to “rotate”, even though your build sucks at rotating) but because I find it sad, that this play style just gets outright removed by a brute-force “balance” approach instead of Anet actually taking the time to look at turrets and fix, what’s actually broken.

FirehawkDAR.9021:

naphack.9346:

Ithilwen.1529:

@Faux
That’s pure sophism and bravado. This thread has made it clear that the players not wanting turret nerf are the players who are turret engis.

So the only ones, who don’t complain are the ones, who actually played the build themselves?
You know what? That sounds totally like…
like…
like…

like every other whine thread about thieves, power rangers, etc.

Now this is what I call pretentious hipster bullcrap.

Shall I tell you who are the ones who don’t complain about turret engies? There are two groups, one of them being those who don’t read the forums. They aren’t all aware of the discussions where metalheads are trying to defend their clearly overpowered build, therefore not giving you the time of day by releasing all the pent up resentment toward you and everybody who trolls the PvP scene by rolling this abomination that shouldn’t have been allowed to exist.
The other group simply doesn’t care as they mostly play PvE and as such, aren’t really affected. So please at least try to sound convincing before resorting to logical fallacies.

Nobody here defends the current state of turrets. The people just don’t want this “solution”, which leaves no room to fine tune, while either making turrets entirely unplayable or not changing anything at all.
If it makes turrets unplayable, any further change needs to consider the changes already made and if it leaves things as they are, again any further change needs to consider the conditon and crit side of things.
There is no way, such a wildly thrown in change will incidentally land just on spot.
The current problem is, that turreteer is too tanky for the damage, he can dish out or deals too much damage for how tanky he is, whichever way you prefer it. The solution is to make turrets take conditions and crits? Seriously? How about changing, what is actually broken?
Turrets need a complete rebalance, not a blanket nerf. Especially because they are hardly ever used in PvE.

Now, if we introduced a new stat scaling to turrets, lowering their base stats, giving them precision and ferocity and making their attributes scale with the engineer attribute spread, we’d be in a better place.

NOT because turrets would magically be in a place, where they are totally balanced, that’s just ridiculous… But we’d be in a spot, where turrets could be tweaked individually. Without throwing a wrench into the usability of some already underused turret skills(hi net turret), without having to worry about making turrets even WORSE for PvE purposes.
With turrets scaling from attributes, tweaks could be made on individual basis both on base stats AND on scaling to find that sweet spot for each individual turret skill, where turrets are both viable for tanky builds, for dps builds AND for PvE without being obnoxious at any point.

The goal shouldn’t be to just take down the turret builds, the goal should be to bring turrets to a spot, where they are easier to balance.
With a blanket nerf, we are still stuck, where we are, balance wise. We still have the same tools to balance turrets, turrets still deal damage independent from the engineer’s stat spread, the rocket turret of a 27k health engi will still slap you for 4k damage, but we will gain no additional tools to tweak turrets to a point, where they are both fun to play and fun to play against.

Guard will not keep its low cool down if a disable is rolled into it. Simple as that.